There was an app that went around Facebook a couple of months ago that calculates how much time you’ve spent on Facebook. So with some hesitation, I clicked it.

Yikes!!!!!! Since 2009, I have spent 24 entire days on Facebook.

That’s almost a month! I could write a real book in that time.

That’s 4 days a year! That’s an average of 15 minutes a day!

And I know it’s been way more than 15 minutes a day the last few years because now I am part of more groups and the conversation is more engaging.

I love reading about Michael’s adventures in Hong Kong, catching glimpses of Alexis’s life in Buenos Aires and learning from industry groups like the Dirties and the Freelance Bitches. (I seriously have the best feed.)

Don’t get me wrong, I received one of this year’s most interesting, educational project referrals from a group on Facebook, so yes it pays to be there.

But I am going reduce my time on Facebook.

I took Facebook off my phone and my iPad to prevent me from mindlessly cruising at home when I should be interacting with my kids.

I go on once in the morning on my laptop and then turn on my favorite app, Self-Control, which blocks any site for up to 24 hours at a time. (Yes I cheat plenty.) It's been about a week. It's not easy. I think it takes 60 days to make a habit. I'll let you know how I'm doing.

With 300 million users uploading 21.9 billion photos on Instagram last year, we’re taking and sharing more photos than ever before. But the funny thing is, we’re printing fewer and fewer of them. Instagram may have the highest engagement of any social network, but you can also engage people by printing out your Instagram shots. The intersection of online and offline is my favorite place to hang. Here are a couple creative ways to share your favorite photos.

An Instagram business card.

Sue B. Zimmerman is The Instagram Expert, a high-energy entrepreneur who helps growing businesses find and connect with their audiences on Instagram. Is it any surprise that her business card is an Instagram shot of her in an Instagram frame? Sue's contact information is printed on the back. These are Mini Squares printed by Social Print Studio, a fun online studio that prints your Instagram shots. (I am not an employee, I simply love their products.) And yes, several months after meeting Sue again at #smmw15, I still have her business card pinned up on my bulletin board. How's that for brand engagement?

Cards Against Banality.

Liz’s talks are the epitome of “edutainment” – blending information, education, humor, and real-world examples. She is known for her Words of Lizdom, a collection of wise and punny aphorisms. As a holiday gift I designed a card set of her Words of Lizdom. (Large format Squares from Social Print Studio.) I know Liz got a big kick out of them and appreciated the personalized gift.

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The Word Book

In the writing world, November NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month where writers commit to writing the first draft of a novel. While I couldn’t commit to writing 1,600 words a day, I could commit to writing 1 word a day. So every day for a month, I created a word image on mobile devices, using a combo of photo, Over and Brushes and posted the word image on Instagram. At the end of the month I printed a tiny book, My Favorite Words.

I sent My Favorite Words out as a holiday promo to my clients. It was a big hit, many even shared the book on Instagram. Now, over a year later, when I visit their offices, many clients have the tiny book stuck on a filing cabinet. (The back cover contains a magnet! Yep, printed by Social Print Studio.) This is the beauty of print, if you create something precious, people will keep it, providing a lasting branding message.

Do you have any crafty Instagram ideas? Share them on Instagram and tag me: @annemccoll.

The sketchnotes I created last year for Social Media Marketing World #smmw14 were featured this week in an article on Social Media Examiner: 26 Tips for Improving Social Media Examiner.

My sketchnotes illustrated a creative use of Slideshare. Of course, I always want to bring people back to my site but by putting the sketchnotes out on Slideshare, the collection has racked up almost 30,000 views, something that would never have happened had I only posted them on my site.

Some people are able to sit at their desk all day with a bowl of M&Ms, welcoming their co-workers with a blast of sweetness.

I am not that person. Put a bowl of M&Ms in front of me and I will eat them all. If I want will power, I have to put the bowl of M&Ms in another room.

The same is true for the shiny lure of social media. I am on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram for work. I am on social media for my business, but if I’m not careful, social media can be a great time suck. I have found a few apps that make it easier to limit my time on social media and get down to the business of writing.

This is a beautiful app that lets you turn off the Internet connection to your machine so you can be more productive. (Extremely useful if you are at work or a co-working space and can’t physically turn off the Internet.) You turn Freedom on and specify how long you’d like to focus and you get down to work. If for some reason you do need to get back online before your specified time is up, you can reboot your computer.

Now often, people say, “Wait, I need such and such a site open so I can do my work, or research.” If that’s the case, then you just need a little Self-Control. This handy dandy app lets you specify what web sites to block or to specify the only websites you’re able to access. Again, you can specify up to 24 hours which sites to block. SelfControl ups the ante, you can’t access your blacklisted sites until your time is up—even if you restart your computer.

Do you ever have moments where you go to a coffee shop or an empty conference room in your office and get an amazing amount of work done? Sometimes moving to a new physical location helps with your ability to focus. OmmWriter is like that. It’s a simple text editor with simple backgrounds and soothing sound effects that create a distraction-free environment that helps you focus on your writing at hand in a calm collected manner. OmmWriter isn’t a word processing program so it doesn’t have spell check and other tools. Its primary purpose is to help you get your thoughts down in a first draft. By far, one of the best things to happen in writing.

At a seminar earlier this year, Interactive pioneer Todd Purgason said there’s never been a great creative tool for self-expression. It’s true. You can take photos. Film videos and create art.

The iPhone is also addicting. It’s like a window into another reality where you can leave your current existence.

Yesterday my history-obsessed daughter and I were discussing the origins of the term alpha and omega. Quickly at a stop light I googled omega to see what latin letter it stood for. Thank you iPhone, instant knowledge. Instant gratification.

Yet, when my husband is driving it’s too easy for me to get on my iPhone and miss the opportunity to talk to him.

Why do I keep feeling a need to go back to my iPhone?

It's all about dopamine. Dopamine controls the pleasure systems of the brain and motivates you to seek out pleasures food, sex and drugs. So when you get a response to a text, it's a shot of dopamine. When you find an answer you Googled, it's a shot of dopamine. And our body always wants more. More. More.

So I attended the big social media fest once again—Social Media Marketing World 2014 #smmw14. It's held here in San Diego so it is silly not to go. Some interesting takeaways

Always maintain your own piece of the web

Your email list can be your most profitable channel

I had great success with visuals standing out in Twitter feeds building on success from last year. Next year that strategy will be flooded. And when it came to sketchnoting, using a much fatter brush for font emphasis is a quicker way to go rather than block letters.

As a matter of fact, you should get in the mood by having lunch at the Kansas City BBQ, the scene where Maverick and Goose are out with their family and hot naval instructor PHd girl friend. The Kansas City BBQ is located within a short walk of the Midway.

I've been camping in the Anza-Borrego desert since I was 12 years old or so. Now that I have kids of my own who inherited my tiny bladder, I have to wake them up to go to the bathroom every night. (Definitely no fun when it's raining or 34 degrees outside.) But when when we open the tent flap and peer up, we are greeted by the most amazing spectacle of stars. At 2 am, all of the campfires have been put out and there are no lights to compete with the galaxies overhead.

One evening my son Robert asked me, "Mommy, are those stars there all the time?"

"Yes, they are," I answered. "We just turn on so many lights, we drown out the stars."

These days, a lot of people are detached from the night sky. We don't just hang out on the front porch like people did 50 years ago. With TV and air conditioning, we stay indoors. And we miss spectacular sights like this.

The desert has become a wonderful refuge, not just for its natural beauty, but for also what's not available. There’s no Internet connection and no phone reception. No YouTube, Hulu or TV to distract us. At night, we sit in chairs around the campfire and make s'mores. (I'm always the first to fall asleep.) And in the mornings, I read in the tent with the kids before venturing out for hot chocolate.

Isn’t it funny, I have to leave home to spend time with my kids?

It’s so easy to get distracted around the house. The laundry. The Internet. The bills. I’m looking forward to another desert trip over New Year's.

I hope between the hustle and bustle of the holidays, you have time to sit with your loved ones and do absolutely nothing together. Just take the phones and put them in a basket in another room, even if it’s for an hour after dinner.

May your holidays be merry.
May they be bright.
May they be unplugged.

P.S. How I remember the difference between desert and dessert. You only want one desert, that's one s. Who doesn't want two desserts? That's a double s.

I'm loving the way you can make gifs out of Vines. They don't require the user to push play. Insteda, they give you six seconds to tell a quick story or illustrate variety of products, or here, showcase a the work of every third grader in Room 4. (Interactive copywriters are always look for new ways to tell a story beyond words.)

Thank you Internet, it's so much easier to share information. But now there's too many cat videos and insightful quotes floating around, we now we need a filter. This is what I try to remember when I share. (Okay except when it comes to Star Wars.)

In a highly publicized move, Yahoo! redesigned their logo with design efforts led by CEO Marissa Mayer.
She says in an article in Ad Age:

"On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator. I think it's one of the most incredible software packages ever made. I'm not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous :) So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team"

Obviously, Yahoo didn't design their new logo in-house because of economic reasons.

What's the most cliched stock photo out there? The smiling call center girl? The business men shaking hands. Or the bullseye arrow?
Yep, I'm taking up with archery. I shot the arrows. I shot the picture. But I don't think I'm going to use it as a visual to illustrate on target marketing.

Social Media Marketing World hosted by the folks at Social Media Examiner came to town for a few days. I created sketchnotes and sketch tweets during the sessions and tweeted them out. All visuals were created on the fly using the iPad and Brushes and Over apps.
One surprising theme – don't discount your email list. It will be the most profitable.

Tonight was the kickoff reception for Social Media Marketing World at the San Diego Natural History Museum. What do you get when 1,000 social media marketers invade a collection dinosaur bones and fossils?
All of these images were created live on mobile devices.

Oh, I can't believe I haven't shared this yet. Truly, one of my favorite freelance copywriter projects from last year. The Fandom Marketing video. The animation was done by the very talented Todd Anderson of Switchfoot Creative.